


Armistice

by Spinning Place (buttercups3)



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Romance, Spoilers for Season 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-31
Updated: 2014-10-31
Packaged: 2018-02-23 10:05:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2543609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buttercups3/pseuds/Spinning%20Place
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Mabel Lane Fox and Charles Blake leave Downton Abbey, Mary and Tony discuss their past, present, and future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Armistice

**Author's Note:**

> This is overly saccharine. Sorry, it's kind of what the show inspires. *hides*

_She loves you, Tony. Not as well as I, but perhaps enough._

Mabel. Curls bouncing off her shoulders like the bows of the Christmas pine Father cheerfully unsprung from its cherry-red tether on what the Foyles christened Dressing Day. Steaming teacups of hot chocolate and cinnamon clattered aside as Henry and Tony fought over the Dalmatian ornament, their yearly ritual. Mother finally had to draw up a schedule in which each boy would hang the embattled canine every third year, though Joseph scarcely noticed his turn, as he, the heir, was always honoured with crowning the tree its angel. At age nine Tony made off with the porcelain, lacy-winged cherub and hid it under his pillow until Henry ratted him out. Tony’s cheeks still burn at the memory of Mother’s reproach. He was always her darling, virtuous one. Such cunning was beneath him.

Yes, Mabel feels like family, and he’s emptier, colder at her departure. She’s left him with a decision, and he’s stuck in the mud--or rather, in the Crawley’s drawing room--all alone save Robert’s prize Labrador, lying paws-crossed on her side by the fire.       

It’s pathetic to stay, isn’t it, when the curtain has been tugged down, exposing him naked and Charles Blake and Mary jeering at him? (Hurt as he was that Mabel would involve herself, he understands acting mad for love.) Now with co-conspirators flown, only Mary, the ringleader, remains.

Tony’s brains are a cauldron of boiling headache and frothing shame. Plastered to his underarms his sweaty shirt is cold and stiff. He longs to bathe, but inertia has set in. He slumps down indecently on the couch. Isis heaves a whistling sigh on both their behalves, golden flames glinting off her pale fur. Tony dangles his fingers down into the comfort of her coat, seeking that empathy domesticated animals seem eager to impart, her clouded, brown eyes soothing. 

With a creek of door behind him, Tony shoots up straight on the couch. Lord Grantham. 

“Ah, there’s my girl. She’s all tucked in at the fire, hm?” Robert squats before his beloved dog to stroke. 

Tony’s just grateful the attention isn’t on him. “Indeed.” 

“Does she seem rather listless to you, Tony?” 

Tony glances down at Robert’s pinched lips and etched crow’s feet: genuine pain. The Foyle men had a pack of foxhounds growing up, and when his favorite died--Misty--he buried her himself in the pouring rain to mask his tears. He believed he wanted to be alone, but when he felt hands on his shoulders--his brothers equipped with their own shovels--he realized his error. You see, Tony is the baby. Though he enjoys solitude, he hates _feeling_ alone, craves love, pathetic as it sounds.

“She does,” Tony admits honestly. 

Tony has lived Mary’s frustration with her papa over the past few years that father and daughter have co-managed the estate. He has ached for the neglect of Cora, whom he greatly admires. Yet in spite of it all, he feels affection and compassion for the Crawley patriarch. How could he not when Mary is, in many ways, the best of him? 

Therefore, when Robert sighs, “I can’t say I don’t dread her death with an enormity that staggers me,” Tony aches for him, memory scuttling to fellow sailors who could one day stoically pile charred human bodies like so many potato sacks, but the next, weep like children at the loss of the galley’s tabby cat. She’d choked on a fishbone, a mundane demise in the midst of such terrible bloodletting. 

“There’s something very English in the mourning of one’s dog.” Tony forces a smile, and Lord Grantham nearly musters a grateful uptilt of lips. 

It’s then that Nanny enters burdened by a rambunctious little George. He’s embraced a smattering of words only this week, the fetching little chap. He brightens the room in an instant. 

“Pardon me, m’Lord, is Lady Mary about? She asked me to bring down Georgie.” 

“No, she isn’t, but I’ll ring for her. I’m about to go up-” 

“Glee!” interrupts George, as he makes a mad dash from Nanny’s arms to clang headlong into Tony’s bony knees. 

With an _oof!_ and a chuckle, Tony pats George’s sweat-damp head and receives the tiny airplane the child thrusts into his hands. 

“What’s that he calls you?” Robert asks, laughing. 

Tony ceases making propeller sounds to respond, “Oh, Gilly, I believe.” After all, the mumble of George’s little bell voice is as new to Tony as it is to the world. 

“So, I’m Donk to Sybbie, and you’re Gilly to George; doesn’t it bother you?” Robert furrows his brow. 

“No,” Tony crash-lands the airplane on the arm of the sofa to the exuberant applause of the boy. “I think it’s rather lovely he recognizes me.” Indeed, George has bestowed upon Tony one of his precious first words. Therein lies a familiarity that stings given Mary’s unceremonious sweep of Tony from the family. 

“I’m so sorry, m’lord,” Nanny cuts in with chagrin, “but Lady Mary promised I could leave for an appointment in town.” 

That Nanny’s personal schedule might compromise Lord Grantham’s vague afternoon plans goes over as poorly as expected. “Well, I certainly can’t watch the boy, I’m heading upstairs.” Robert manages to begin backing toward the door before the words have settled into the vexed lines of Nanny’s forehead. 

“I’ll keep an eye on him until Mary comes down. It’s not a problem,” Tony assures to the palpable relief of both. Donk absconds with Isis in such a rush that Tony and Nanny can’t help but smile at one another. With a friendly nod and a swish of black and white uniform, she vanishes too. 

In a moment, Tony finds himself balancing George on his arms, pointing to family photographs on the writing desk. 

“And who’s that?” He indicates a grinning Lady Grantham beneath the shade of an enormous hat. 

“Gah!” 

“That’s right! Your grandmother.” 

“And this?” 

George stares at the light-haired, uniformed man in transfixed puzzlement. 

“That’s your papa, George.” 

“Soj.” 

“Yes, he was a soldier. A very fine one at that.” Granted, Tony has no idea what kind of officer Matthew Crawley cut, but he feels it’s only right and fair to romanticize one’s dead father. It’s then he realizes that Mary has crept in behind him. 

He starts, embarrassed she has overheard him, as if she’ll think he was trying to replace Matthew. Letting his long eyelashes mask his uncertainty, he gazes down at George jutting out stubby limbs for reception into his mother’s crepe-silk-covered arms. _That_ dress. He knows exactly how the zipper feels between his fingertips, how when released, the supple fabric glides down her creamy skin. 

“Hello, darling.” Mary kisses her boy. 

Tony sinks under the weight of her gaze. She wants his eyes, but instead he informs the blunt, chestnut tips of her stylish bob, “I’m going up to pack. I’ll depart on the 3 o’clock tra-” 

“Please don’t. I’d like to talk with you. If you would just wait here while I hand off George to Mama?” 

With a surge of bravery he meets her chocolate irises at last, unsure of why he was avoiding them in the first place… fear of their last goodbye? But there he sees the old warmth--not the wintry Mary of late who’s iced over her compassion, nor even the light-heeled, summery Mary who met him in Liverpool. These browns are burdened with sadness and regret and something else he’s too terribly tired to discern. 

And so he nods, corners of his eyes crinkling at George’s wave goodbye, the fled heat of his favorite human’s body nearly sucking away his will to stand with its departure. Stupid how much he loves her still. He must prepare himself to quit. He deflates back onto the couch and rubs his temples, a bonafide headache seizing control. Even the subtle firelight scrapes against his fragile corneas. 

“Are you quite well, Tony? You look rather wan.” 

He hadn’t heard her return and jumps to stand, but released from decorum by her wave off, sits again stiffly, knitting his hands in his lap like a shield. 

“I’ve a bit of a headache. Mary, if we talk now I’ll never make the train, and I shall have to stay another night.” 

“Desperate to leave, are you?” 

“Isn’t that precisely what you wanted--the entire point of your game?” 

Mary perches across from him, straight-backed, prim, folding her hands in a mirror of him. No matter how deep runs their emotional strife, how unrespectable their entanglement has grown, their good manners are etched into their posture. They are a perfect painting of aristocratic beauty to be admired, envied. Their cracks are very hard to see from the outside.

“George is quite fond of you,” Mary returns briskly as if she’s perfectly on point. 

Tony squints at her, swimming slightly in his vision, and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Well, I’m fond of him. Of this house. Most of all, of you. But I see now how I’ve vexed you, and…” his voice chokes off. Oh dear. How inconvenient that instead of his temper he finds grief, which very nearly deposits him at the floodgates. 

“You’re mistaken.” 

The words rattle in the hollow space his brain has created to fend off unwanted emotion. _You’re mistaken_ seems to make as little sense as her comment on George’s affections. 

In bafflement he locates his edge. “On what exactly? The fact that you conspired with that ass, Charles Blake, and my one-time fiancée to- oh, I don’t know, Mary, you tell me what you hoped to achieve by it!” he nearly shouts. 

Folding his arms into a straightjacket, it’s as if he’s trying to hold together his last vestige of sanity. 

“I won’t deny that I sought to get you back together with Mabel. I wanted you to be happy, and I felt you couldn’t be happy with me.” 

“Mary, for heaven’s sake! What could it possibly take to convince you that I can _only_ be happy with you? You act as though you were somehow being magnanimous and selfless in pushing me on Mabel, but you were being cruel--to Mabel, as well. You’ve insulted and humiliated me in every possible way.” 

His voice rings desperate and unflattering, and as he stands to escape, she appears before him, catching his arm in her strong, slender fingers and forcing him back down on the couch. 

She perches beside him. “Tony, please. It’s difficult to explain. Will you only give me the chance?” 

Tony exhales and stares at her milk-white hand against the sage tweed of his arm. Insanely, he has to resist the urge to touch it, to relish the smoothness of silken skin stretched over fragile bones. 

“I _have_ used you illy, and I am sorry for it. Truly, I am. But I didn’t do so with the malice you envision. I do care about you. I fear, though… I fear I’m simply a bad person.” 

Tony shakes his head. They’ve trodden this ground before, this nonsense that he’s somehow too kind or good for her. “You’re too hard on yourself.” 

“No, I’m not. I’m not nearly hard _enough_ on myself. You see, Tony, if we married I’d trample you. It’s unavoidable. I’d always be searching for something to argue over. I’d be prodding you with a poker just to get a rise.” 

“Must we quarrel to keep you entertained?” Tony’s false laugh barks out in exasperation. 

“I don’t know! I’ve never known someone to be as agreeable as you, or at least not someone I’ve liked as well as you. In truth there are times when your serenity infuriates me!” 

Tony’s mouth falls open at her honesty. He perfectly comprehended her indignation at his despicable rage at Kensington Gardens, for which he apologized at length by letter, but this? He’s at a complete loss.

She remains gripping his forearm almost painfully tight, but her voice wavers, the confidence dribbling out the sides of her subsequent declaration: “You see, I do not want a man who idealizes me. You’ve loved me _too well_!”

“I…” Tony bites his lip and at last gives into the urge to cover her hand with his. To his relief she does not brush him off but lets their fingers find familiar nooks and angles. “I believe I’ve loved you as you deserve to be loved: completely and with all of my being. But if it’s put too much pressure on you-” 

“It’s nearly suffocated me!” 

“-then, I’m sorry. Perhaps I do choose to see the best in you and ignore the chaff. But your warmth, your strength, your intelligence, that’s the core of who you are. I’m a very stubborn man-” 

“Yes, you are-” 

“But if you _see_ that, then why pretend I’m made out of glass?” Tony’s pitch rises yet again. 

“You’re far more sensitive than I!” 

“Look at me and tell me I haven’t survived a great deal, Mary. War, death, heartbreak. I’m still here, sitting beside you. I’m quite incapable of being broken.” 

She drops her face into her hands. “I know that, only-” 

“Only?” 

“Only, I just needed to hear you stick up for yourself for once.” 

Tony squints at her until she finally looks at him once more and continues, “You are a true _gentle_ man, and it’s admirable, however alarming it is to a person like me. I need to be certain that gentle isn’t weak. I’m still not entirely…” Mary sighs. “You once said we could be so very good together. Can two people as different in temperament as we really be good together?” 

Tony stutters momentarily, “Why- yes. I believe that’s the whole purpose of marriage: to balance one another as equals.” 

For a long moment, Mary fixates on the flames, challenging the tension with their merry crackle. Finally, she turns to Tony and declares matter-of-factly, “In that case, I suppose I have something rather important to ask you.” 

What happens next appears to take place in a dream, as if Tony’s exhaustion has finally won out, and he’s fallen asleep without having realized it. Mary shuffles and arranges her skirt to kneel before Tony on the rug, gripping both his hands. Pulse racing, head throbbing, for an alarming moment Tony fears he’ll be sick. 

“I’ve been a terrible fool,” Mary sniffs, shifting uncomfortably. Why she’s on the floor in her dress and heels is completely beyond his comprehension. “You make me a better person, better than I believe myself capable of being. But I _want_ to be the person you see, for George… and for you. I’m still not completely sure of us; I desperately wish I were. I was sure of Matthew, but I honestly think I’ve just changed. Nothing feels as set as it did when I was young. And yet I’m willing to take this risk, because I admire you greatly. I love you. You’ve asked so many times that I feel it’s only fair for _me_ to ask this time.” 

Reality settles into Tony’s tear ducts before his brain can even register the turn. Wet floods over his eyelids and trickles down his cheeks, and in a haze of embarrassment at his unmanly display, he scarcely hears her ask, “Anthony Gillingham, will you marry me?”

He’s now stupidly weeping and has to break away and retreat to the window to compose himself. In a moment, she joins him, not touching him but breathing with him, as together they gaze out at the magisterial estate, its sweeping emerald lawn, its dignified oaks. Downton reflects all the spectacular beauty and resilience that is Mary Crawley. There is no place on earth Tony has come to love more.

When he’s certain words and not a sob will come out, he checks, “You still want to? Aren’t you afraid I’m fragile after all?” 

She leans her cheek against his arm and wipes at her own eyes, still regarding her vast domain. “Of course, I want to. Don’t keep me in suspense.” 

Cupping her cheeks and tilting her face to his, he assures her sunlit, amber eyes, “Yes, Mary. A thousand times yes.” He kisses her nose as a grin claims her smart lips. He can’t help but add, “But you’ve rather robbed me of the pleasure of hearing the word from you.” 

His lips find hers, familiar, sweet, always that inexplicable wave of passion. They kiss for so long that they gasp and melt into a tight embrace, bodies pouring off heat, mending the wounds they’ve wrought in each other’s flesh. He realizes his headache has passed. A greater wave of relief surely wasn’t felt at the Armistice at Compiègne.

Her breathed, “Yes,” is the sweetest word he’s ever cared to imagine.


End file.
